A biography for V. S. Naipaulhasn’t been written yet.
“I could meet dreadful people and end up seeing the world through their eyes, seeing their frailties, their needs.”
“Judgment is contained in the act of trying to understand.”
“I came to London. It had become the center of my world and I had worked hard to come to it. And I was lost.”
“I'm the kind of writer that people think other people are reading.”
“I will say I am the sum of my books.”
“Many writers tend to write summing-up books at the end of their lives.”
“The ancillary aspect of every British city now is the council estate.”
“I have a very small public.”
“My publisher, who was so good as a taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh.”
“All the details of the life and the quirks and the friendships can be laid out for us, but the mystery of the writing will remain. No amount of documentation, however fascinating, can take us there.”